tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post5674109392664764061..comments2024-03-09T09:06:35.288+00:00Comments on Notes from Two Scientific Psychologists: Giving children with movement problems a leg up with robotsAndrewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-12563530115790641822012-11-16T08:43:45.085+00:002012-11-16T08:43:45.085+00:00In many ways this task and handwriting could be ma...In many ways this task and handwriting could be made to have similar movement trajectory patterns, so it's an obvious candidate to show transfer. Although, to my understanding, the goal of the task is also important in how learning one action transfers to another. This might be the trickier aspect to engineer in the design.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05510239268718173857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-59575675931327637522012-11-15T19:05:06.231+00:002012-11-15T19:05:06.231+00:00Agreed, and transfer is a sticky problem. The most...Agreed, and transfer is a sticky problem. The most likely candidate is handwriting; the task is designed to be similar to that and the stylus you interact with for the Phantom is basically a pen. If I remember correctly, that's next on the to-do list; Mark Mon-Williams has a system implemented on a tablet laptop that's got good handwriting assessment tasks on it, it would be easy to add into the next round of studies. <br /><br />As a general rule of thumb, learning is pretty specific to the thing practiced, unless the transfer task contains enough structural similarity (ie they overlap in meaningful ways). I've got a paper under review with Geoff and Winona looking at how to go after this issue using coordination. Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-75612031812169537472012-11-15T17:42:18.710+00:002012-11-15T17:42:18.710+00:00Do you know if there is any work to test whether t...Do you know if there is any work to test whether these learning results transfer to a different, everyday skill? I think the findings are great, but it is one thing to learn to control the Phantom and another to learn to control one's movements in a flexible, goal-directed way in real-world scenarios.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05510239268718173857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-7218781927441336882012-10-25T13:47:48.869+01:002012-10-25T13:47:48.869+01:00Practice variability is well known to improve lear...Practice variability is well known to improve learning (technically it slows learning but improves retention and transfer). There's a long literature on this in early motor control work (something I had to read more of to teach sports science, weirdly).<br /><br />The space people talk about is the space of parameters; variable practice exposes you to more examples of the basic underlying dynamic with varying values (eg fly balls of varying release velocity are all fly balls but each travels a different distance).<br /><br />This implies that the variability has to preserve the underlying dynamics while simply allowing the parameters to vary in order to be useful. It occurs to me just now that kids with DCD have problems with the underlying dynamics - each attempt to produce a movement is implemented differently, so both the dynamics and the parameters are different. Hmm. I wonder how to turn that into an experiment.Andrewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16732977871048876430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9192597712746432631.post-60990918109615344182012-10-25T12:54:37.004+01:002012-10-25T12:54:37.004+01:00Almost disappointing how cut and dried this is! In...Almost disappointing how cut and dried this is! Interestingly, I've seem Maurice Smith present work at a conference suggesting that the (non-clinical) participants who are the most variable at the start of a motor learning task reach a slightly higher asymptote (their final level of performance is higher) than people who start off with less variable performance. The explanation was that 'exploring the (metaphorical?) space' led to better understanding of the situation's dynamics, leading to better performance. I myself have wondered if you could jump start this process by strategically introducing high variability into early motor learning performance/trials. <br /><br />Now what any of this has to do with the above data is not really clear. Maybe there's a safe zone in which a little extra noise in the system is a good thing, but too much noise is a disaster. Or maybe there's an inability to use the noise in the same way as controls for DCD kids.<br /><br />Interesting stuff regardless.<br />Gavin Buckinghamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08539613027114375642noreply@blogger.com